A time traveller's guide to retirement

Megan had her retirement dinner this weekend. It was a great celebration of an exemplary career, but my social skills failed me when it came to making a speech (As unaccustomed as I am ...). So I thought about the speech that I would have liked to make, and here it is:

The retiree's guide to time travel

So the first rule every time traveller needs to know is that time travel is one way only.

Col and Meredith

Unlike Sisyphus, there's no pushing that rock back up hill. So you may as well leave those regrets for things undone behind you (like not speaking at Megan's retirement, unless you can make slight amends by post-event blogging!). 

Leonie and Michelle

The corollary is that there is no replaying the record. That one way trip is irrevocable, and cast in stone. Our actions speak more loudly to who we are, than any amount of wishful thinking.

Julia, Bernie and River

Michelle and Tracey

The second rule of time travel is that it has a beginning and an end, neither of which is under our control. The beginning has begun, and the end is unknowable, so anything you think you might want to do, you might as well do it now, bucket lists be damned.

Toni, Keith and Jenny

The final rule for time travel is a little more subtle. It says that the rate at which time passes is variable and under time traveller control. Have you noticed, in a highly predictable environment, how rapidly time passes?

Sophie and Bev

Teaching is one of the most time-regulated professions: the bell rings, we march... and its cycles within cycles, sports carnivals, athletics, swimming cross-country.... semester reports, parent and teacher nights and so on and on.  All this makes for a very predictable environment, and time passes very quickly. Have you noticed how the years have flown. As Megan said, 'At 22, I ticked 55 and here it is'.

Rob and Steve

Leila, Jenny and Geoff

The retiree time-traveller, on the other hand, wants to slow the passage of time. We want to savour the texture, smell the roses, enjoy the moment. The trick to this is to choose novel environments. When the environment is new and unpredictable, our attention is captured by each sensory event: new and exotic smells, different tastes... we struggle to catch the intonation in foreign sounds, visual textures and vista's that take the eye somewhere else entirely.


 We are captured again each minute and a day lasts forever. Automaticity doesn't have a chance to set in, and we can't pre-compile patterns for living.

Kay and Di

So our solution is to become retirees of the  itinerant time-travelling kind. There's no stopping the inexorable flow of time, but we sure can catch each passing second and treasure it for the gift it is.

Itinerant time travellers

I'd like to thank you all for attending a wonderful and celebratory evening, and allowing us to notice in exquisite slow-time, the nourishing and nurturing relationships with comrades and colleagues who have helped us survive and flourish in the quick-time twixt 22 and 55.